Mommy's turn to post!!!

Yes you heard right - I've decided to write the blog this week!!!  Well I didn't actually decide. I was given a guilt trip by a certain someone so here I am. Mommy's just aren't as funny as Daddy's. And baby Hudson is of course hilarious when he writes the blog. But here I am. I suppose I can cut Daddy some slack since he is preparing for training to start for his new job (!!!).

Hudson has had a very busy week. We were in Chicago and he finally had his two month check up. Two shots and one oral medication later, and he was a champ! He cried for all of five seconds and then stopped as soon as I picked him up. He's in the 75th percentile for height and 50th percentile for weight. Still on track to be 6 foot tall!

We also had a lot of photo shoots this week. Below is an idea I got off Pinterest....

Daddy can always make his boy smile.

Here is me attempting to get Hudson and cousin Anderson to take a cute picture together. Very difficult mind you. Lolly is behind the blanket holding Hudson. Chris and Aunt Shannon are next to me trying to get the babies to be all smiles. And they do this by repeating animal noises to Anderson...very distracting for a photographer. And this is the best I could get...

Anderson loves to give his baby cousin kisses.

Hudson can't take anymore kisses.

Happy boys!

Hudson also hit a milestone this week. He can roll over! I know you may not believe that an 11 week old can roll over, so here is the video to prove it (click on the YouTube link). We were doing the normal tummy time routine and he just kept pushing onto his back. I contribute this awesome baby power to all the vitamins I continue to take even after pregnancy. Best. Mom. Ever. And feel free to call my baby a genius!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANSz8ApOZwc&feature=youtu.be

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! Hudson will be back next week to update you on his exciting hood life in the crazy cornfields of Springboro Ohio  :)

Settling In, Visiting Farms, & Scaring Dee Dee

Hello gang!  After a long blogging hiatus that saw me being endlessly passed around from person to person (interspersed with the occasional eating break), I have at long last finally been given a respite to speak my mind on recent goings-on.   I've been told I moved from Chicago to Ohio, but regardless of where it is exactly I am these days, the only thing I notice are a whole lot more people wanting to get their hands on me and hold me!  Maybe it's because I've been looking reaaaaal smooth lately.

I mean, I was straight pimpin in this jean jacket the other day looking fresh to DEATH.  Even Mommy had to recognize how posh my game was - she took my whole style and sported a jean jacket too!!

Then came the coup de grâce....Mommy finished up my look, by recognizing that my future is so bright, I just GOTTA wear shades.

Heck, I'm even practically throwing up a rocker hand sign in that pic.   Can I get any more anti-establishment?   Praly not.

One thing I have noticed since getting to Ohio is that I have become really gassy - I give a little "toot, toot" on quite a regular basis these days.  Mommy & Daddy (M&D) always get a kick out of it, especially when it's bath time and I oblige them with a steady stream of little bubbles emanating from my behind!! Daddy looked at me and said "This confirms that you are your mother's child!"

This past week, I got to meet more of my extended family - my great-aunt Lissa and my great-grandma Dee Dee both came to Springboro to visit me!  They oooohed and awwwwwed over me, and regrettably also saw me at some of my low points when I would work myself "up into a lather" (as Lolly puts it, in her usual Southern drawl).

I also got to have quality time with Aunt Shannon, Uncle Drew and cousin Anderson as they would come over to the house everyday to hang out!  Aunt Lissa loved to go on walks in the morning, so the whole gang would go along with her (well, the younger ones anyway).  I couldn't hear all that well (I was being worn by Mommy) but I think I heard Daddy complain that Aunt Lissa walked way too fast and refused to go at Daddy's "amble" pace.  Sounds like a valid complaint to me!

So with the big ol' gang in town for a long weekend, Lolly and Aunt Shannon made sure she had plans for us all (Daddy's plan was for everybody to sit down around the television to expose Aunt Lissa & Dee Dee to this show called Breaking Bad....needless to say, I think he got them hooked!).  On Saturday, Aunt Shannon had planned for everyone to go to a nearby farm and experience a Halloween-themed tractor-pulled hayride.  We got to the farm and it started out being all fun & games; I was chilling in the Baby Bjorn, cousin Anderson couldn't stop sliding down slides (to the consternation of the older folk on the table having to watch it over and over and over again instead of doting on me).

 That's when it started to go downhill.  Because after the Anderson's umpteenth slide, Pop took...or should I say "lured"...cousin Anderson into looking face-to-face with this scary-looking mannequin!  Daddy said it scared Anderson half to death!  He was still a little rattled when he took a picture with me, Mommy and Aunt Shannon.

Then came the actual hayride, and poor Dee Dee!  Not that any of the women over the age of 40 enjoyed the hayride all that much, but man-oh-man, Dee Dee!!!!  For starters, the hayride was extraordinarily bumpy. Secondly, the course had about 24-hours worth of rain soaked into the track, turning the hayride into more of a mud-ride.  By the end of the hayride, Aunt Shannon's great idea had almost turned Dee Dee catatonic!  This is her about midway through:      

 

By the end of the trip she was pretty much laying on her back on the hay, barely able to move.   Poor Dee Dee!   As for me, I slept through it all!   Mommy said I sparkled!!  

Overall, it was a great weekend and it absolutely wore me out, as this picture with Daddy can attest.  We had a fun seeing everybody and both Dee Dee and Aunt Lissa made me smile and laugh!  I can't wait til they see me next time and I'll hopefully be walking by then!    See you all soon! 

Crazy isn't even the word...(MOMMY & DADDY Edition)

Hello everyone!  Firstly, our apologies for the un-announced extended delay!  Things have been...well...hectic (to put it mildly) these last few weeks and not even Hudson has had a free moment to put his thoughts down on paper.

When Hudson left off, neither himself nor Mommy or Daddy had the faintest idea that we were about to have some major shake-ups our lives...at least not right here, right now.  You see, for quite a while Angela and I had been discussing the benefits afforded with being closer to family.  Well after going back and forth ad infinitum, on moving and all of the intangibles such a thing would entail, Angela and I decided to set up a meeting with a real estate agent.....JUST to throw around some numbers, nothing more.  Sounded innocent enough to me.   Except that as we were coming out of the meeting, I was stunned that Angela and I were seriously talking about setting up a schedule to put our condo on the market post-Labor Day!  Wait....WHAT?!?!  How did this happen?!!?!?  I should have known how a meeting with a real estate agent was bound to end up!

The ramifications of this decision thundered down on us one by one as the dominoes began to fall in our head and we understood what this all really meant.   We are taking care of a newborn baby and we live with two pets -  a perfect dog who still sheds mounds of fur despite the fact I practically shaved her bald this summer (to be fair I made it look good, or at least presentable), and a ravenous cat who will eat anything and everything and always throw it back up (and will eat that!).   And that is to say nothing of ME and the messes that erupt spontaneously after I leave a room!  Yeah...neither of us were even remotely prepared, physically or mentally, to keep up that annoying requirement that says a house on the market must be maintained in pristine, showroom-like living quarters at all times.  So, it looks like we need to rent a moving van and take as much as we can so we don't have to deal with the condo during it's tenure on the market.  Which meant that...

"Hi Lolly and Pop!  It's your about-to-be 30-year-old son, wife and 8 week-old son.  You got a spare room...or two...maybe even three?  Yeah you do?   Well we are THERE!!!  We're just gonna crash for the night.  And by night, I mean until our condo sells.  Oh, and we brought over a U-Haul's worth of stuff that needs to be stored.   Thanks!!"        

OK, so the conversation didn't quite go like that, and it was a little more planned out on everybody's end, but you get the gist.  We are expecting to be moving again very soon, but in the meantime, Lolly and Pop get to have a hands-on experience with raising Hudson!   Angela and I honestly cannot tell you how fortunate it has been to have an extra set of hands around the house - for when he is sparkling and when he is having his meltdowns!!

Hudson has been enjoying life in Ohio.   He is now the center of attention - though cousin Anderson is doing his best to wrestle attention away from him!  Every morning right after Hudson wakes up and eats, we hand him off to Lolly to oooohhh and awwww over so we can get ready for day.  She will look at Huddy and say that line from The Help, "You is smaaaaaahhhhhrt. You is kiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnd. You is impoooooortant....You is smaaaaaahhhhhrt. You is kiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnd. You is impoooooortant....", and on and on.  Not exactly sure why, but Hudson gives the biggest smile when she does that!   It's quite amusing. During the afternoon, we take the dogs for a walk with Pop, and Hudson is strapped into his Baby Bjorn with Daddy and immediately falls asleep.  Meanwhile, Aunt Shannon and Uncle Andrew usually come over for dinner and bring along cousin Anderson.  Hudson gets passed from person to person while cousin Anderson runs around trying to get everyone to look at him....then he points to Hudson, says "beh-bee" and kisses him on the head.  It's so cute!

Anyway, that's all for now.  I've left you all with a ton of pictures to make up for all the time we missed.  BTW, this first picture is a picture of Lolly "helping" move us from our Chicago house.

The day before Lolly and Pop came to Chicago, Lolly went to the doctor's and was told she had some affliction known as "tennis elbow" and told not to lift anything heavy.   How convenient!  Even the affliction sounds made up!!  So Lolly showed how a Southern belle helps out - by sitting on the Chicago streets with Hudson, watching the truck, sipping on a drink while Angela, Pop and myself were lugging heavy boxes back and forth and sweating profusely.   Lolly also added the encouraging word...."Doing a good job y'all!!" *sips drink*, "Keep it up people!!" *takes another sip*,  "Looking great guys! Let me know if I can do anything not involving lifting!!" *slurps drink loudly*   Oh, and please believe she would try to start a conversation with every person that walked past her, oblivious to the fact that Chicago folk do NOT like to chit-chat....especially to strangers on the sidewalk!!!   Yeah, she was tons of help chilling on Chicago's mean streets with my dog and baby.     Anyway, love you all and til next time....

All the little ones together in Chicago one last time.  :(

Anderson doesn't care about Lolly/Hudson time - he'll sit on her lap anyway!

Daddy holding Hudson in his "football" hold.  Huddy looks worried.

I'm a HUSTLER baby!  Stella, look out!

Love the picture.  Hate the bib.  Thankfully, he spit up all over the "UK".  Not sure if it can be salvaged.

"Oooooooohhhhh......you got CLOWNED!!!"

Moving my extremities with ease people!!

Chubby cheeks!!!

Hudson doing one of his mile-long stares;  looking good Angela!!!

Daddy encouraging Hudson during Tummy Time.  "Get angry boy!!!"

Why does Pop like to dress like Hudson?

Stop burping me so rough!!

Chillin on the playmat